Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Forever Free - Part 2

After seeing the video of Steve
Gleason and Pearl Jam yesterday, I was compelled to write … Here goes ...

I wrote something recently on the
subject of relativity … and weeks before I wrote about my close encounter with
death when I was seven …

The event was a big deal, in and of
itself … however, I rarely if ever go into all those minute details of that catastrophic
encounter. What I didn’t touch on was the fact that from that moment when I
fell down and couldn’t get up, I never again had normal functioning of my body.

And my life was totally different
than any other child I knew ... I only went to school for half-day ... I had to
lie down the better part of the time ... my walking was purposefully limited
... (my doctors wanted to protect me from scoliosis or uneven legs) ...

I had had what was called a
"Spotty" case of polio. What that meant was that I had stronger and
weaker muscles scattered throughout my body ... unlike most others who had some
kind of symmetry to the way the disease impacted their bodies ... like having
paralysis of both legs ...

The good news was that I was
ultimately able to compensate (I still am a Master of Compensation) and manage
to live relatively "normally" ...

Unfortunately, what was never
addressed in those childhood years was my emotional state ... I’m sure I spent
more than my “fair share” of time being angry, frustrated, lonely, depressed,
etc. (What on earth is a ‘fair share’?) But I never showed it ...

By the time I went off to college
all I can remember is that physically I seemed to manage quite well. The
college campus was spread out … hills and flights of stairs everywhere … and we
even used to sneak out late at night … drive into the City (N.Y. of course) and
dance all night at Trudy Hellers. (Does anyone remember that place?)

Somewhere in the 1980’s articles
started to come out describing something they were calling Post-Polio Syndrome.
They were finding that people who had had polio 30 to 40 years earlier were
beginning to experience symptoms reminiscent of the original onset of the
disease … muscle weakening, loss of mobility, severe fatigue and pain. It
seemed to be affecting those who had been most severely impacted by the initial
impact of the disease.

I can remember some of my more
metaphysical friends telling me to ignore the articles … You know, “What You
Think is What You Get” … so I did. Time marched on and I don’t think I
noticed any real changes … or if I did, I wasn’t admitting them even to myself.

I’m not sure at what point but I can
remember starting to take advantage of “Wheelchair Assistance” at airports.
Maybe that was the ‘mid to late ‘90’s … Can’t really remember …

In Oct. 1996, I had a bad slip &
fall and fractured my left ankle (the weaker of the two) and was in a cast for
3 months. My mobility was severely affected …

I was able to walk around my
apartment but couldn’t manage on my own outside of the house and needed to use
a wheelchair … I also needed help maneuvering bathing because I couldn’t get
the cast wet and wasn’t able to straddle the tub alone … After the entire
episode, I was advised to begin using a half-brace on my left leg which I
didn’t fight.

To my best recollection, that was
the first time since childhood that I once again found myself in a “helpless”
condition … not able to even take care of my own basic needs …

Almost a year-to-the-day later, I
fell again and this time only gashed
my eyebrow open requiring a few stitches.

Curiously enough, on both of these
occasions, I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, which I hadn’t
experienced since that fateful night so many years earlier … it brought up some
very vague, strange but yet again somewhat familiar feelings ...